Pakistan switches to e-passports and nearly doubles fees — The Express Tribune

Pakistan has stopped issuing new machine-readable passports and switched exclusively to electronic passports. At the same time, the cost of obtaining documents has nearly doubled, The Express Tribune reports.

Regular processing of a five-year, 36-page e-passport now costs 9,000 Pakistani rupees, compared with 4,500 rupees for the previous machine-readable document. Urgent processing has increased from 7,500 to 15,000 rupees. Previously issued machine-readable passports will remain valid until their expiration date.

New fees

A fee of 22,000 rupees has been set for expedited e-passport processing, while the previous fee for quickly obtaining a machine-readable passport was 12,500 rupees. The cost of 72-page passports will also rise in the same proportion.

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The passport and immigration department explained the increase in fees by the higher production cost of electronic documents, which use modern technologies.

Document processing

According to the publication's sources in the department, 5,572,130 passports were issued in the country in 2025. Of these, more than 3.27 million were machine-readable passports issued through the regular procedure, about 1.84 million through the urgent procedure, and another 276,789 through the expedited procedure. In addition, nearly 180,000 e-passports were issued during the year.

To implement the system, the Directorate General of Immigration and Passports installed 10 additional printing machines and six laminators. Round-the-clock service was introduced at 232 offices, while 93 round-the-clock service counters operate at Pakistani missions abroad.